I think that was a stroke of genius! Theyre faces with an audience that’s acutely aware it’s a new actor playing Bond for the first time, so they ‘out-it’ early doors by breaking the forth wall. Before we can start comparing him he actually compares himself.
Not something they should do again, but faced with that dilemma for the first time I thought it diffused the insurmountable expectations pretty effectively (or at least delayed them long enough to give Lazendy and the story a chance).
If they had comitted to one or the other maybe, but they then try with “look, it’s the same guy!” After making the whole pre-titles, “yes, we know it’s not the same guy” it makes the references office scene very jarring. If it was one or the other, I’d have been okay…mostly, but having both seems like they where to sure what to go with.
Though I never like the hiding the leads face thing in any film (Bond plays that card 4 out of 6 times) - if they’re watching the film, it’s a safe bet they’ve seen at least one advert for it, so they know exactly who that is and what he/she looks like.
3 years on, and I still hate the brother reveal. Ruined what could have been an all-time great film and gave us a terrible retcon of the entire Craig era.
Of course, I have to chime in again now 
“Elipsis”: a conscious emission of an event or a series of events which do not need explanation or are provocatively left to one´s imagination.
“Plot hole”: a mishap or oversight by the author/director/producer/producer´s wife/studio exexutive´s lover etc., which leads to an illogical and/or unexplainable chain of events
I love the meeting in Rome. But Oberhauser´s casual remark that he goes by the mother´s name now, during the torture scene, indeed is a weak reveal.
But for me, it´s the motivation that really lacks the punch it apparently was supposed to have. Jealousy is a good motivation - but I never got the feeling why Oberhauser was that envious of his father’s love for Bond.
And the retcon would have worked for me, too, if it had been really played out. Bond should have found out from the start that everything in his past missions related to Oberhauser.
I would have preferred Blofeld being named the Spectre-uberhoncho from the start of the film, and Bond finding out, the guy really is Franz Oberhauser, his step-brother. Now, that would have been much more interesting.
I find that with SPECTRE I don’t mind the ‘brother’ angle itself so much as the fact it’s presented as the core of Blofeld’s motivation. There is literally nothing to support it, it’s a whole complex that appears out of the ashes as meaningful when there was never the tiniest bit of evidence for any of it.
From today’s perspective I dare say it would have had definitely more impact and potential for future sinister developments if Bond had never been anywhere near Blofeld and it had all been Blofeld’s delusion kicked off by Bond’s epitaph in the media.
Yes! I wholeheartedly agree with all of this! Bond should have been chasing down a guy named Blofeld and discovered as a by-product of his own effort and ingenuity that, (SHOCK!) he knows this man and is connected to him. I also would have preferred that prior to the end Bond would have begun to piece together the puzzle pieces that connected the previous films rather than a lengthy and ham-fisted chunk of expository explanation directed at him.
Maybe it is like Iago’s “motiveless malignancy.”
Good idea - but even that should have been elaborated on.
This Shakespeare guy never was asked to do a Bond, was he?
I take your point - The ending of Twin Peaks: The Return was an ellipsis for example, and again my issue is not that the Craig films left things dangling or unanswered but that they were post QOS weakened by their passion for explaining everything.
There are some very inconsequential ellipsis’ in the Craig films, but one feels like they were not really placed in the film with thought, rather for a desire to reference the past - there’s nothing provocative about them being left to the imagination, its just lazy contrivances - so I’d argue ellipsis is much too elegant a word for whatever they were
wasn’t one of the drafts in the Sony leak revolving around Blofeld trying to hide his true identity as Oberhauser and he had photos or some DNA that were in a vault in London somewhere (hence the London finale)?
Since - rumor has it - Blofeld was an African warlord in Logan´s original treatment, someone at some point later must have thought: I´VE GOT IT! BLOFELD IS BOND´S STEP-BROTHER! GENIUS!
And it feels as if that had been an idea shoehorned in later in the game. Hence the contrived way to make it work while not really changing many of the sequences that came before the third act.
The real culprit? The idea that EVERYTHING about a hero has to be personally motivated. When Bond actually is one of those heroes (movieBond anyway) who rarely lets his professionalism get entangled with private emotions.
There was that rumor, yes.
totally agree, if Bond takes things personally it should be earnt and come as a result of a mission - I think in CR/QOS the personal/professional line was appropriate (and should have been left behind after for a while) and it was also fine in LTK and Goldeneye. Skyfall and Spectre suffered infinitely from the age of storytelling universes and Marvel envy that Sony (potentially EON) had.
In the end, they wanted to have it both ways, Moonraker/Die Another Day level of outlandish plot but “grounded” “gritty” “personal” and taken seriously like OHMSS, GE or LTK and it makes it even more ridiculous as a result - despite the nice moments in Spectre it is very close to the bottom of my Bond rankings
But isn’t ambiguity/ellipsis/capaciousness part of the poetry and beauty of the play? Bond films can achieve levels of poetic beauty and artistry–not every time and not always for the entirety of a particular film, but when this alchemy happens, it is amazing. Blofeld is evil; Bond is good. Good maneuvered evil out of the nest. Blofeld is not a character in an Ingmar Bergman or John Cassavetes movie—he is a villain in a Bond movie. Is his motivation for evil more/less substantial/satisfactory than Scaramanga’s?
Emerson wrote: ““A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.” A foolish consistency is also the hobgoblin of little movies. Bond films would not have survived had they been exacting in their consistency or timeline for if they were, all poetic associations and aporias would be banished, and the entire series could be plotted on a grid and every screening would hit the exact same points in the exact same pattern. What aesthetic joy is there in that (excepting, of course, viewers like Herman in Woody Allen’s THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO who need a film to be exactly the same every time they see it)?
Besides: if the films were consistent, what on earth would we talk about between movies?
TMWTGG doesn’t take itself anywhere near as seriously as Spectre (which while being a bit more jovial than its predecessors, is still very grounded and dark tonally at least) - If Spectre had Sherrif JW Pepper (who is surely due for his reboot reimagining at this point it must be added), a slide whistle car stunt and Mary Goodnight i might be inclined to agree with you
A rebooted JW Pepper… wow, I never would have thought of that! 
I also never would have thought I would discuss Emerson here. Kudos!
And I agree on consistency - part of the fun of the Bondfilmverse (bad word creation, sorry) is that it gives an invisible car about all that. It just stops and starts and reboots and recycles whenever it feels like it.
All the obsession with a perfectly thought out overarching narrative must lead to disappointment or ridicule here.
I would go further than that. I preferred the days when each film stood on its own, even when – maybe especially if – it contradicted the ones before it. Since they were all designed around the same formula anyway, there was the feeling of a legend told by the campfire: different in small ways every time based on the person telling it and real-life events and tastes of the moment.
For the most part I have not enjoyed the introduction of “continuity” in the Craig years (especially since they’re not that good it) and I would love it if the recasting brings an end to it.
Exactly. The Bondfilmverse is akin to a toolkit with various pieces and parts. A Bond film can be put together in a variety of ways–sometimes emphasizing whimsy and other times grittiness and yet other times trying to achieve a balance between the two. There can be over-the-top set pieces and there can be the mad dash out of Scaramanga’s lair which seems to have been a case of "one-and-done" (I love the way Bond and Goodnight slip at the end and Hamilton keeps the take in). We can have the psychology of SKYFALL and the under-motivated action of SPECTRE. As for the permutations of Bond himself, I count seven with more promised.
Bond lovers will have their favorites and their duds, but even the duds do not turn fans off, since they live in continual hope that the next Bond will fall into their favorite column (happened for me with SKYFALL and SPECTRE).
For me, it would have been, and made more sense for Blofeld’s hatred of Bond to start with Casino Royale. He ruins their financial plans and Blofeld is forced to remove one of his most trusted men. Then Bond continually ruins Spectre’s plans and even exposes the quantum branch of the organization. Blofeld’s anger grows and grows to the point where him ruining everything in Bond’s life’s makes sense. I could even accept Blofeld recruiting Silva am allowing him to carry out his bizarre plan to take Bond’s maternal figure. However, the brother reveal is too convenient and completely unearned. Madeleine’s arc is a microcosm of this. Nothing she does in the film makes any sense and her falling in love with Bond is so unearned and forced that it’s basically laughable.